Matsushita optical disk gets nod from standards setters | 21 June |
Matsushita Electric Industrial Company said today that its PD Optical Disk has gained approval by the European based Standardization Information and Communications System association. The PD disk system is now specified in document ECMA-210. The approval was granted at the ECMA's 71st General Assembly meeting which is currently taking place in Berlin, Germany, after the standard was jointly submitted for approval by Matsushita, Asahi Kasei, NEC, Plasmon, 3M and Toray, at an ECMA technical committee in Nice, France, in December last year. The PD disk is a rewritable optical disk system and drives for the system also feature the capability to playback CD-ROM disks. The device is gaining users in Japan, alongside the growing popularity of the smaller magneto optical (MO) system, and total drive sales recently reached 280,000 units. This compares with sales in the rest of the world of 220,000 units. Disk sales have reached 755,000 in Japan and 555,000 in the rest of the world. At the meeting, the ECMA also approved the forwarding of the standard to the Geneva based International Standards Organization for fast track processing as an international standard. ISO approval is expected in Spring 1997, said Matsushita. The Osaka-based electronics giant has been pushing the PD standard and set up a new optical disk systems division in October last year to promote the standard and others that Matsushita is developing such as digital video disk (DVD). The company has a number of products under development including a 50 or 100-platter library system that accommodates both CD-ROM and PD disks alongside each other and a PD/CD-ROM server system. (Martyn Williams/19960621/Press contact: Deborah Lamascus, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., +81-3-3578-1237, fax +81-3-3437-2776) |
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From the NEWSBYTES news service, 21 June |